Revision Outline Sketch Blueprint

The Fatalist 'Enlightenment'

For my revision, I plan to expand my blog post on what I titled “The Fatalist Enlightenment” (http://pitt-crit-reading.blogspot.com/2012/01/fatalist-enlightenment.html). There are several reasons why I am choosing to do this. First, I believe nearly every text we’ve read since I wrote the post in late January is highly germane to the debate between fate and free-will. I plan, at the very least, to include Lilith’s Brood and On Human Nature (as per the original post), as well as Moby-Dick. I also plan on engaging with One Dimensional Man.

A requirement for this final project is that we choose one of the more philosophical works from the class (Wilson, Lewotin, or Marcuse) and engage with their ideas/work in a sustained manner throughout my argument. My initial post harped pretty extensively on Wilson’s idea of the non-existence of free-will. I plan to shift the majority of my philosophical engagement from that of Wilson to that of Marcuse. The schematics of such a revision will most likely bound an argument as follows:

1)      Wilson makes the claim that honeybees do not have free-will. He makes this claim based upon our understanding of science and our heightened/developed intellectual skills compared to the honeybee. His argument summarizes as such:

i)        Given enough computational power, we can predict the ‘choices’ that a honeybee would make based on a knowledge of all external stimuli: the placement of nearby flowers, pheromones, etc.

ii)      Therefore the honeybee does not have free-will, as we can predict what the bee will do “with an accuracy exceeding pure chance” (Wilson, 73).

iii)    We can then imagine that, if there were a higher life-form than humans that were able to view humans in an objectified manner, they would come to similar conclusions regarding humans.

iv)    Therefore, humans do not have free-will either.

v)      However, it is the limitations of a being’s own intellect that determine its illusion of free-will, therefore any given being should, by Wilson’s definition, always have the illusion of free-will.

2)      Many opponents of sociobiology see this as problematic; I do not. As I claimed in my previous essay, there is no inherent or functional difference between illusions of free-will and free-will itself. In fact, it only becomes problematic or bothersome when we begin to make inquiries with regards to its nature. Otherwise, we do our human-version of happily collecting honey obliviously.

3)      Marcuse views humanoid happy, oblivious honey-collection as a private (public?) hell. Much of his theories of liberation state that we cannot become truly free until we realize that we are not free.

4)      Wilson’s theory seems to directly contradict Marcuse’s. I realize that discussions of free-will and freedom are not entirely within the same realm, but there are substantial overlaps. Consider:

i)        Wilson believes that any given being cannot transcend its own intelligence in order to realize that it is, in fact, not able to exercise free-will.

ii)      Marcuse believes that it is possible for society to transcend its own consciousness in order for it to realize that it is, indeed, not free.

5)      I think both of these make a substantial amount of sense to me, yet I think that Wilson’s reasoning poses more of a challenge to the validity of Marcuse’s claim than vice versa.

6)      For, if you have the perception of free-will, it is as good as free-will. Is not, then, the perception of freedom inherently the same as freedom itself?

7)      Surely it is not, yet this does pose a particular challenge to Marcuse’s work, one which I would like to explore using several examples from the texts we have read over the course of the semester.

As for outside sources, I am still somewhat searching for the most germane texts to my inchoate argument. I have been referred to Heidegger countless times over the semester and have begun to engage (albeit a somewhat cursory engagement) with his philosophical outlook. Assuming I can rise ever so slightly above my current dilettante-level understanding of Heidegger I would like to bring in a discussion of his concept of Dasein, particularly when it comes to Dasein’s choice between authenticity and mimicry (and how both are still choices and therefore ‘free-will-ish’). Which means my tentative bibliography includes Being and Time (Between the Macquarrie/Robinson and the Stambaugh translation, is either more cogent? (Are there particular sections I should look at?))

My second, and perhaps third academic resource will be from an academic journal. I am currently perusing some of PittCat’s catalogue to find a nice review of current neurological/psychological understanding of free-will (or the perception thereof). Mostly, I am finding highly esoteric submissions involving much neurological jargon and very little speculation in the neurology papers I’ve found and pretty much the complete inverse in psychology papers (speculation abound). I want to find a good mix between the two, something I can reference as our current biological understanding (removed from sociobiology, hopefully) of not only where our free-will comes from, but where our own limitations in understanding it lay. Hopefully I will be able to turn this back around to challenge Marcuse’s proclamation further.

If not (it’s not looking good), I plan on engaging with, at least in a passingly critical fashion, neuroscientist and author Sam Harris in either his book (appropriately enough) “Free Will” or “The Moral Landscape.” In each, he argues for a scientific understanding of basic morality and believes that science can offer us a way to build our morality around – very much a neo-Wilson. I will use his claims as a counterpoint to Heidegger’s approach (or rather, Heidegger’s approach as a solution to Harris’s floundering).

Hope all this qualifies.

Questions on Ellison/Marcuse, Week 2

Prompts for this week...

Are unchanged from last week.  Do the proposal if you haven't done it; otherwise, write on Ellison, as defined last week.

http://pitt-crit-reading.blogspot.com/2012/03/prompts-for-this-week-and-next-week.html

Reification of Oppression in Marcuse and Ellison.

“I was thinking of the first person who’d mentioned anything like fate in my presence, my grandfather. There had been nothing pleasant about it and I had tried to forget it. Now, riding here in the powerful car with this white man who was so pleased with what he called his fate, I felt a sense of dread. My grandfather would have called this treachery and I could not understand in just what way it was” (Ellison). Marcuse’s unification of opposites runs rampant within Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Ellison creates and presents racial control and class oppression that takes place through an illusory unification of opposites bestowed to the oppressed class from the oppressor. In this way, the potentiality for protest and therefore revolt are recognized by the oppressing class. These nodes of resistance are swiftly applauded and upheld by the oppressing class – they are given money, education, and attention. Upon receiving this money, education and attention, the node of resistance undergoes a paradigm shift – becoming something other than a portion of the oppressed class and thereby the node is effectively distanced from its identification with the oppressed class and begins to identify with the oppressing class. Once it becomes difficult for the node of resistance to identify with the class from which it transcended, the initial ideology that it first recognized becomes clouded, hazy, and conflated with the ideology of the oppressing class. Thus, a harmonious unification of opposites.   

What is particularly tricky with regards to the bolstering of nodes of resistance by the oppressing class is that the very act which leads to the unification of the oppressed and oppressing can easily be propagated as an act of valor for the oppressed class by the oppressing class. This can create the illusion that progress is being made and that not only is the oppressing class empathetic to the plight of the oppressed class, but, indeed, they have taken a step towards closing the gap. The narrator’s initial speech that gains him attention within the society was concerned with the idea “that humility was the secret, indeed, the very essence of progress” (Ellison, ). This idea is heavily grounded in Marcuse’s ideas of the mollification of social protest. A young African American man, a member of the oppressed class, makes a speech during a time of great social injustice and his main idea is that the effacement of the individual would lead to what he identifies with as progress. Within the very next sentence, the narrator scoffs at this idea: “Not that I believed this – how could I, remembering my grandfather? – I only believed that it worked” (Ellison, ). Yet he puts forward the idea, knowing that he would benefit from it. From the start, this is a clear representation of the unification of opposites. The narrator is clearly a member of an oppressed class and he recognizes this. Still, his first speech concerns progress (it is unclear within the text if this initial speech is connected to racial issues or not) by engagement with the established system. Furthermore, the speech itself symbolizes this very engagement, as the ideas contained within the speech are not beliefs which the narrator holds, but which he recognizes as a tool for gaining social merit (which he then may be able to turn around and use for actual progress).

Once recognized as a potentially influential orator, the narrator is presented with a scholarship to attend college. The narrator is essentially being integrated into the very society that oppresses his people and accepts. At the ceremony where he receives his scholarship, he is berated, belittled and beaten by bigoted white men, which eventually allow him to make a speech concerning relations between African Americans and white persons. The speech, again, highlights humility and the ‘social responsibility’ of both classes, yet it is given after the battle royale, after the narrator had been beaten and demeaned. The presentation of the scholarship at the end of the speech completely closes the universe of discourse within the novel. Any initial protest that the narrator had – whether regarding race relations in general or objections to the way he had been treated before his speech – were efficiently squashed once he was given the briefcase. Indeed he claims that he was “overjoyed” (Ellison, ). The injustices of the men (or the society) are somewhat forgotten or at least accepted by the narrator as he is allowed to transcend his previous social stature and become more fully integrated into the established order. In addition, the actions of the men are offered as if they were “in jest,” treating social inequality as inevitable, taking great pride in proving an African American a scholarship, while blatantly taking part in overt racial violence.

The next chapter depicts the narrator driving Mr. Norton around the outskirts of the college. The narrator feels privileged at this point, and the opposites of oppressed and oppressor are unified within the car. They travel outward from the college and witness the countryside to which Mr. Norton takes a fascination. Outside of the realm of affluence and privilege, the oppression of the African American race makes itself readily apparent. Mr. Norton’s fascination with African American struggle and his apparent want to experience their culture seems as his acceptance of proven social roles, given that “renunciation and toil are the prerequisites for gratification and joy, business must go on and that the alternatives are Utopian” (Marcuse,145). Mr. Norton views the social gap between whites and African Americans as something for African Americans to ‘overcome’ – and he believes he is providing them the tools – instead to viewing the bigoted tendencies of the overarching societal structure itself – including all relevant races – as problematic. The narrator’s reluctant acquiescence to Mr. Norton’s request is yet another example of the acceptance of this: although the narrator is clearly made uncomfortable by the exploitation of the log cabin’s scenery and symbolism, he is powerless to refuse Mr. Norton’s demand due to previously determined social roles that with domination.

Mr. Norton’s sickness is perhaps symbolic of a breakdown of this one-dimensional thought. Upon exposure to the poverty and alienation of Trueblood, Mr. Norton becomes aware that the college he had founded and funded only served to perpetrate racial relations between African Americans that were not attending the college. Furthermore, African Americans attending the college were less likely to protest, less likely to seek radical social change, and more likely to conform to the contemporary order. The $100 that Mr. Norton gives to Trueblood is further evidence that he believes the struggle for existence is primary financial and monetary: for Mr. Norton, a $100 gift to an oppressed individual is equal to that of a college dedicated to an oppressed class. The notion that the oppression of a race came from the quality or lack of their education rather than the structure of society is ignoring the core and central issue – or, rather, simply operating in a two-dimensional society.

Ellison, Marcuse, and the Consciousness of Servitude

The Invisible Man and One-Dimensional Man have a clear relationship in that they deal with the issues of social-domination and the inability to recognize it.  Both Ellison and Marcuse are contending with this topic in slightly different ways.  Marcuse is mainly concerned with the overall power structure that is dominated by the rich, and one that perpetuates the destruction of multidimensional thought.  Ellison, on the other hand, focuses his lens a little more closely on the factors that racial tensions bring into this power structure.

Marcuse asserts, “All liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude, and the emergence of this consciousness is always hampered by the predominance of needs and satisfactions which, to a great extent, have become the individual’s own” (Marcuse, 7). Here, Marcuse is saying that for true freedom to occur, everyone must first realize that they are in fact not free.  This raises a problem: people are generally too preoccupied with attaining basic needs, or are too concerned with achieving success to realize that they are bound to the ultimate form of servitude.  Due to this fact, ultimate liberation may never present itself as a feasible goal.  This quote from Marcuse can be related to The Invisible Man on several occasions throughout the novel. However, the occasion that I would like to investigate appears in Chapter 1, where the narrator’s grandfather speaks his dying words.

“I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy’s country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction” (Ellison, 16). The preceding quote from the narrator’s grandfather troubled his family greatly.  What exactly did he mean by this statement?   I believe that the grandfather meant that he regretted living a humble life in such a racist environment.  In living this meek life, he felt that he was a traitor to his family and his race.  The grandfather proceeded to tell his family to protect themselves by remaining in the servant character, but do not internally accept this role.  If they do not accept this role, they will not be traitors like him.  All of these words greatly trouble the narrator, as we see in the following quote, “It became a constant puzzle which lay unanswered in the back of my mind. And whenever things went well for me I remembered my grandfather and felt guilty and uncomfortable.  It was as though I was carrying out his advice in spite of myself.  And to make it worse, everyone loved me for it. I was praised by the most lily-white men of the town. I was considered an example of desirable conduct—just as my grandfather had been” (Ellison, 16). In the early stages of the novel, the narrator seems that his is accepting the role that the white power structure wants him to play.  He receives great praise for his behavior and is even given a scholarship to a black college.  The narrator seems to be well on his way to living the humble life his grandfather lived and regretted.

This event directly relates to the previous quote from Marcuse.  The grandfather seemed to live a life that was presumably more concerned with basic needs then actually fighting against a system of white domination.  Throughout his life, the grandfather did not possess, or just refused to acknowledge, the consciousness of servitude that is referred to by Marcuse. However, it seems that the grandfather eventually gained this consciousness of servitude while on his deathbed.  The narrator also seems unable to fully grasp the consciousness early in the novel. He has been distracted by praise and benefits given to him, such as the scholarship. His full obedience to the system flies in the face of his dead grandfather, and this makes the narrator very uncomfortable. Still he continues to be blind to the fact that he is being taken advantage of in several instances like the “battle royal” in which he was made to participate.  All of the praise and gifts act as a cover that the narrator cannot see through.  This is very similar to Marcuse’s comments on the consciousness of servitude and how it is hampered by personal wants and needs.  The narrator does not yet possess this quality. All of the approval and acclaim prevent him from seeing his servitude, and in effect prevents the thought of real liberation from entering his mind.  

“This is the pure form of servitude: to exist as an instrument, as a thing . . . the organizers and administrators themselves become increasingly dependent on the machinery which they organize and administer. And this mutual dependence is no longer the dialectical relationship between Master and Servant, which has been broken in the struggle for mutual recognition, but rather a vicious circle which encloses both the Master and the Servant” (Marcuse, 33).

This quote from Marcuse also connects to Ellison. This quote is asserting that even the so-called masters of the power structure in place fall victim to it. They are bound to it and live their lives perpetuating it. The masters constantly seek more power while at the same time defend against the loss of power.  An instance where this is seen in The Invisible Man is when Bledsoe is admonishing the narrator.  The following quote is from Bledsoe, “This is a power set-up, son, and I’m at the controls.  You think about that. When you buck against me, you’re bucking against power, rich white folks power, the nation’s power—which means government power! (Ellison, 142). This quote illustrates Bledsoe’s view of his position at the college. He sees himself as holding authority over everyone at the college, and he seems pleased by this.  Even though his power in a way perpetuates the system of white control, Bledsoe loves his position. However, he seems to be very nervous and self-conscious about his power; he is very afraid that he might somehow be removed from his position of authority.  Bledsoe’s role in this connects to Marcuse’s comments on the Master and the Servant.  Even though Bledsoe holds power over the narrator, there is no classic master-servant relationship.  This is because both Bledsoe and the narrator are being controlled by the system dominated by whites.  Bledsoe is so concerned with keeping his power that he fails to see that he too is being controlled.  Bledsoe is blind to how he is being manipulated into perpetuating the current system in place.  He does this by being more concerned with keeping influential whites happy and giving them what they want to see, than with helping his race and college community progress against the system of domination.

A One Dimensional Invisible Man

Throughout history there have been many attempts, wide scale and at the individual level, to abolish the confines of social class. These attempts are usually made by the lower class to either become apart of the upper class or to simply have no stratification whatsoever.  One could say that an individual with the cliché rags-to-riches story is and individual who has successfully transcended their class and has balanced out these class inequalities. Herbert Marcuse would disagree with those who believe this (and I would concur with him.) When one attempts to rise up out of their class by emulating or assimilating with the upper class they are not ridding the world of class distinctions but really preserve them. This claim by Marcuse is also echoed in Ralph Ellison’s work Invisible Man but first we will start with an analysis of Marcuse.

Here, the so-called equalization of class distinctions reveals its ideological function. If the worker and his boss enjoy the same television program and visit the same resort places, if the typist is as attractively made up as the daughter of her employer, if the Negro owns a Cadillac, if they all read the same newspaper, then this assimilation indicates not the disappearance of classes, but the extent to which the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservations of the Establishment are shared by the underlying population. (Marcuse 8)

What Marcuse claims here is that when we try to assimilate with the upper class by living their lifestyle we are simply maintaining the status quo. Instead of equalizing or abolishing class stratification we are actually perpetuating it and showing how important it’s preservation is to the Establishment. By buying the same luxuries that those we admire have we are not showing that there is no need for class or that we are becoming a part of the higher class but rather that class is so important that one must buy these things in order to display their class to the masses. These actions, in effect, perpetuate class farther and therefore are counter productive to their goal. The preservation of class roles through their attempted abolishment is a theme that is echoed early on in Ellison’s work. Ellison uses the narrator to illustrate this same idea that the attempt to transcend ones class by emulating the upper class usually has negative results.

            In the 1^st chapter the narrator recounts a speech he gave at his graduation. The speech was so compelling that it was met with vigorous praise and the narrator was even asked to give the speech at a gathering of the towns most prestigious, white, members. The narrator terms this invitation as a “triumph for [his] whole community” (Ellison 17) which one would assume it is without reading Marcuse. Initially the reader does consider this a triumph; in the time of the novel, if a young black, high school graduate was given the opportunity to speak in front the white elite it was considered not only a success but and extreme rarity.  We assume that the narrator is transcending his social class.  His superior intellect has impressed the prestigious members of society and because of this they accept him into their community, and in the beginning we imagine that this is a good thing. However we see shortly after that the narrator was not brought there to transcend his social class, but to highlight it and reaffirm it. Instead of showing how his presence shatters social constructs it proves how important they are to the community.

            When the narrator arrived he was not considered the main event, or the guess of honor as he had hoped. He was not given the opportunity to prove why he deserved to be there or why he was meant to be a part of this upper class at all. Instead the narrator was proposed with something completely different: “I was told that since I was to be there anyways I might as well take part in the battle royal to be fought by some of my schoolmates as part of the entertainment.” (Ellison 17)  This is completely antithetical to the reason why the narrator thought he was invited to the event and exactly what Marcuse was talking about. Rather than getting the opportunity to rise above his class the narrator was told to maintain it and instead of being the triumphant representative for his community his was force to physically fight against them. Here we see the masses using the attempt to balance out class distinction as a way to affirm them. The narrator’s attempt to be come apart of the elite caused him to be placed in a position where he is considered as more of an animal that even a human being.

           

The narrators attempt to become apart of the elite social class was thwarted by the very same group that he was attempting to emulate. Through out the night he was received with racial slurs, he was berated and harassed and barely given the chance to give his speech. When the narrator did get a chance to talk, he was given no respect and ironically enough, generated quite a few laughs when he misspoke and preached social equality instead of social responsibility. Here and in other parts in the novel we see Marcuse’s argument accurately portrayed. By trying emulate the upper class in an attempt to strip society of class distinctions only helps to maintain those distinctions and show how important they are to our society.   

Blindness

                A theme that resonates through both Moby Dick and Invisible Man is that of blind following. The following is by men who have a problem finding a sense of identity. Ishmael has nothing for him on land so he takes to the sea under the leadership of Ahab to cast himself away from society. Ahab has almost a supernatural ability to lead men and have them surrender to his will. The men know that it is like a death sentence to chase after Moby Dick, but they follow him out of loyalty and his powerful leadership. The narrator in Invisible Man suffers from a similar lack of identity as Ishmael. The main difference I see between the two is that the narrator suffers from a lack of racial identity, and Ishmael suffers from loneliness and sadness it seems. There is also the blindness of Ahab in his pursuit (following) of the Great Whale. The Whale is an even more supernatural and unseen source of chase than that which Ahab carries with him for Ishmael. Ahab laments about this in the novel when he states that “What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare” (Melville 592). Ahab recognizes that following this force is bad, but there is something that prevents him from ending it all. The blindness of the narrator at the beginning of the novel could be understood more easily when looking at Melville’s two main characters and the incredible forces that they follow blindly behind.

                In the first chapter of the novel, the narrator and other black boys must blindly entertain white men who see themselves as greatly superior in social status because of their race. In order to give his speech to these prominent white men, the narrator decides to first participate in a blind battle royale. The boys were literally blindfolded during the fights by the white men. This is anthropomorphism for the metaphorical blindness that these boys are also suffering from. The narrator is very reliant on more prominent white men for the beginning of the novel, whether it is these men or Norton. Throughout the fights he is nervous to give his speech to these people and frequently thinks it. He says that “The harder we fought the more threatening the men became. And yet, I had begun to worry about my speech again. How would it go? Would they recognize my ability? What would they give me?” (Ellison 24). The last question that he asked himself in particular shows his blindness towards the feelings of these men towards him. They have blindfolded him and treated him like the stereotypical savage that blacks were seen as in the south at the time. These men are able to control his actions due to the idea that they could give him better things if he reduces himself down to a stereotypical African American. They award him a scholarship for college, but he remains under the control of the force of whites, especially in the form of Norton. He seems to care about the kids, but he really has control over their fate and their actions if he desires. When the two are in the Golden Day, they are confronted by a veteran who seems insane to the narrator and Norton. He is the first person in the novel to really confront the narrator’s relationship with whites and how blind he is to their actual feelings towards him. He argues with Norton and says many things about the connection between the narrator, Norton, and other whites. He says that “And the boy, this automaton, he was made of the very mud of the region and he sees far less than you … To you he is the mark on the scorecard of your achievement, a thing and not a man … And you, for all your power, are not a man to him, but a God, a force” (Ellison 95). He continues, “He believes in you as he believes in the beat of his heart. He believes in that ret false wisdom taught slaves and pragmatists alike, that white is right. I can tell you his destiny. He’ll do your bidding, and for that his blindness is his chief asset” (Ellison 95). He makes a very explicit reference to the narrator’s blindness in reference to his relationship with Norton. He makes the observation that the narrator clearly has his own individuality and feelings, but Norton rules over them. He even describes him as “a God, a force” which is very strong language and sticks with the idea that the narrator is being led by something he cannot see by these white men. Throughout the beginning of the novel, the narrator is indeed blind to this force that causes his following. At this point, like Ahab and Ishmael, he seems destined to be with this force and follow it away from his own individuality.